Windy Boy minimum wage bill defeated

Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy’s legislation that would have raised the minimum age to $10 a hour was rejected by the State Senate Monday on a party-line vote.

The minimum wage proposal was one of three bills the Senate refused to take up.

Democrats sought to pull three bills from committees where Republicans had bottled them up. They would have scheduled them for a floor vote for Wednesday, a procedure known in Helena as a “blast.”

In all three cases, the bills were defeated on a party-line vote, 29-21.

Windy Boy, D-Box Elder, argued that families need more money to live on than they get from existing minimum wage laws.

Republicans didn't argue with Windy Boy's point, saying only that it had been turned down by the Business and Labor Committee and there was no need to pursue it further.

The committee had tabled the legislation.

In addition to Windy Boy’s proposals, lawmakers:

• Rejected an effort to prohibit discrimination against gay people.

Sen. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena, said that gay Montanans can now marry, but they can be fired the next day for doing so.

"This really is the civil rights issue of our time," Kaufmann said, adding she's been working on this measure since her tenure at the Legislature began nearly 16 years ago. "We can support nondiscrimination."

• Turned down a proposal by State Sen. Diane Sands, D-Missoula, that would have allowed employees to discuss their salaries with co-workers. She said that was needed to make it easier to detect salary discrimination based on gender.